Leif & Thorn

Official tumblr of the webcomic Leif & Thorn: a sparkly gay bilingual fantasy dramedy.

[leifandthorn]

It's been a rough month. Patrons, enjoy this exclusive cute rainbow wallpaper.

At first I was going to make them all teddy bears...then remembered I have in-house references for a couple dozen other stuffed species, so why not branch out? Ended up with bird Rowan, mouse Marula, bear Pascentia, pony Juniper, bunny Birch, and kitty Violet.

[semper-legens]

73. Leif and Thorn vol 8, by Erin Ptah

Owned?: Yes Page count: 185 My summary: Thorn Estragon has a big problem. A kid's fallen through a hole between universes and gotten stranded in his reality. It just so happens that the kid is a younger version of himself, from a world where he's a magical boy fighting supernatural threats. Now, Thorn has to look after the kid as best he can, while trying to figure out how to get the boy home. And beside all of that, there's Kale, whose secret is slipping out… My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

Leif and Thorn! It's one of my favourite webcomics of all time, and I've religiously kept up with the print copies when they're up on Backerkit. This is the newest, which got to me remarkably quickly (I'm writing this on the 24th of April, and the book got to me by the 22nd - it was only sent out on the 16th!) considering that I'm on a different continent. Anyway. Leif and Thorn is a webcomic, as I said, and it's freely available to read right now! It's the story of Thorn, a guard at an embassy in a fantasy world, and his love interest, Leif, an indentured servant owned by said embassy. There's a lot going on in the comic - themes of oppression, class, poverty, LGBT+ identity, mental and physical health, trauma, and also there's magical people and unicorns and Thorn fought a dragon that one time. It's also pretty lighthearted - there's a lot of comedy in the comic, and it balances that really well with the more dramatic beats! Like, this is the story of a teenager isekai'd from a magical girl universe to a more modern-ish fantasy universe who meets his adult self. There's so much potential for both fun and drama in there. And once again, it sticks the landing perfectly!

Thorn has to deal with having his teenager self around, and it's interesting how both of them are characterised - Thorn has an immediate protective instinct over Kid!Thorn, but his instinct is to treat him like he is literally himself as a teenager, as opposed to a parallel teenager, which causes a little tension between them. Kid!Thorn is eager to get home, but all of the adults are either treating him with suspicion or lying to him, which isn't necessarily helping. Thorn's PTSD comes up here - his former commander is involved with testing Kid!Thorn's abilities to see how they differ from the magic available in their home, but his former commander is the one who got half of Thorn's squad killed and Thorn's arm irreparably damaged in the aforementioned dragon fight. Thorn is understandably nervous letting him near Kid!Thorn, but he's being professional about it; ready to jump in if there's an issue, but not causing arguments, even when it's clear that he's strained by the interactions he has. See, this is where I keep going on about Thorn being Good, but not boring - he's clearly affected by PTSD, he's clearly unwilling to give this guy an inch, but he's trying to be diplomatic and work for the best of everyone, while still making contingencies. Kid!Thorn is just adorable, too. A little more emotional and impulsive than our Thorn, but you can clearly see that they're the same person underneath everything, and he's so easy to sympathise with. Especially when he's playing Fantasy Candy Crush for hours. Same, kiddo.

The other character with a lot of focus in these storylines is Kale, aka former dark magical boy Kudzu, who is trying to get over his own trauma at being manipulated into mind-controlling people by a dodgy pharmaceutical company, which led to him killing a lot of people when his buttons were pushed the right way. Kale is honestly trying to get past the cult mindset and heal, which is difficult when a lot of people think he's history's greatest monster, including himself. Not helping is the fact that Kid!Thorn was sent between universes by Kid!Kale, which means he, too, has a mini-me out there somewhere making all the same mistakes he used to. Kale is always an interesting character to me because yeah, objectively, he has done some horrible things - but that doesn't make him a horrible or unsympathetic person. We see why he did what he did, and we see how he reacts to it going forward. One of the things in this collection is his meeting with Hermosa, to whom he was close and who he hurt terribly when things went bad. There's an ambiguity to Hermosa's thoughts and feelings around it, which is interesting (Hermosa has pretty bad brain damage because of what happened) and there's definitely a lot of nuance around everyone's perspectives. None of them are entirely wrong, all of them are at odds with one another. Kale's self-loathing, Dex (Hermosa's cunning and devious spouse) wanting to kill Kale for all he did, Hermosa being somewhere in the middle of sympathetic and antagonistic to Kale. It's interesting to see unfold.

What's some other stuff in here? There's a neat subplot with Thorn's magical teammate, Atarangi, who's part of a DID system - one of her alters, Kallie, has completely different magic to her, which means her DID comes out when she helps with a water-magic thing that Atarangi, a fire mage, couldn't. This series' treatment of DID is pretty sensitive and, as far as I can tell as a singlet, realistic to how DID develops and what it looks like to have DID, so kudos there! Plus, the Neineikura system is cute. Justice for Pond Thing Neineikura. There's also one of the best and cutest moments in Leif and Thorn's entire relationship, where Kale rents Leif for an evening so that the couple can finally sleep together without there being a power imbalance. (Short version, Leif is an indentured servant who cannot spend time outside work unless he is being rented. There is a sexual services package Thorn can buy, the problem being that Leif would then be compelled to follow Thorn's orders on pain of punishment, which is a power dynamic that Thorn wants to avoid. If it's Kale renting Leif, and Kale just gives an ambiguous 'have fun!' kinda order, Leif is free to do whatever without consequence.) It's been coming for a long time, and the scene where it finally happens is so sweet, they're just overjoyed at finally having this opportunity to act like they're in a less complicated relationship for a night, and they're practically floating on air afterwards. I love these boys, I'm so glad they finally get some happiness!

Next, you guessed it - more pirates! Sort of.

[leifandthorn]

Kale sure was the obvious Leif & Thorn character to draw in this, huh?

Original "Blushing Faces Meme" here. (Patrons got the exclusive first look.)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

i cannot math right this week so instead of the 15/25 update i'd planned you can have a 16/25 update! @2026-book-bingo

librarian/bookseller rec'd: the buffalo hunter hunter by stephen graham jones. this book was on the seller's recs shelf at three different albany-area bookstores i visited around christmas last year; between that and the title i knew i had to give it a go, and god it was good. love a diary-keeper who is very obviously lying to his diary. love the thought that went into how the "cat man" functions. loooove good stab. slow burn revenge story protagonist of all time.

blurb buddies: curses by lish mcbride, who provided a blurb for the 2026 debut author book below. a beauty and the beast retelling where i really liked the leads and their romance, but the side characters felt very thin in ways that make me suspect this novel is names-hastily-filed-off fanfiction. like, the side f/f relationship was so unevenly written i don't think mcbride ever established that the feelings were requited? which, if these side characters are named something like korra and asami i guess that's not unacceptable, the audience will infer your intended dynamic, but when you've stripped them of that fandom context you kinda do need to do the work.

2026 debut author: apparently, sir cameron needs to die by greer stothers, tumblr's favorite weird cats owner. a cowardly knight's death is prophesied to cause the downfall of the evil sorcerer who wants to kill god, both of which the knight finds upsetting, but preventing his own death obviously takes priority over god's. an absolute delight! i read 95% of this in a three-hour train ride and was tempted to linger on the train to finish the last chapters. deeply weird and queer and fun; there was a twist i smiled and nodded at and two more that made me burst out laughing.

gothic fiction: we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson. god. fucking incredible. fantastic character voices, subtly written. the agoraphobia is palpable, i wasn't surprised to learn that jackson struggled with it herself. it's a classic of the genre for good reason.

science fiction: zero sum game by s.l. huang. the author is a former hollywood stunt performer and graduated MIT with a bachelors in mathematics, which as interests could not be more perfectly aligned than in this sci-fi thriller: a woman with absurd math visualization powers uses those abilities to manipulate physics in her favor, kick ass and steal things (and/or people). she doesn't think about the childhood memories she can't recall until an encounter with another person with impossible abilities forces her hand. fun characters and a very hollywood thriller plot, i really enjoyed myself with this one.

manga, comic, or graphic novel: leif & thorn, volume 8: tread softly by erin ptah. i've been following @leifandthorn for over a decade now, and don't know how to handle the fact that the story seems to be heading towards an ending. relatedly, this volume is not a good jumping on point: it's the wrapping up of the big multidimensional arc from last volume, a significant milestone for leif and thorn's romance, and the resolution of a major side character's emotional arc, the latter of which made me very happy. my fave is healing! finding closure! getting to respond to the question "who are you?" with "i'm you, but with more therapy." what more could i ask for?

[leifandthorn]

Since the Vampire (Hunter) AU just had "checking in on Kale and Thorn," let's do a new Patreon backer wallpaper with AU Kale and Thorn.

Kale has a range of suit ensembles! Thorn basically just has one uniform...

[leifandthorn]

Leif imagines “but what if Thorn was with me right now” a lot.

Bonus art from Leif & Thorn volume 8. (Preorder store.)

[leifandthorn]

Potential problems with the Leif and Thorn site. I’m getting the error “a server with the specified hostname could not be found” on Firefox.

It's working on my device (checked both Firefox and Chrome). Followers, anyone else having trouble loading the site?

The error points to a DNS problem, so this might just mean "some DNS server somewhere had a temporary outage."

[leifandthorn]

A mystery character from Leif & Thorn! What could his deal be...?

[leifandthorn]

Leif on a walk in the forest, taking a break to pose in a tree.

[leifandthorn]

Magical teenager Thorn, taking full advantage of this pretty bubble effect.

Bonus art from Leif & Thorn volume 8. (Preorder store.)

[leifandthorn]

Vampire (Hunter) Thorn, page 25

(Read the original post on Leif & Thorn)

[whatwhatwotter]

Volume 8 of @leifandthorn has arrived in the UK!

I feel like this is a record for how quickly it's gotten here, although I hear it's also a record for how much the postage cost so I suppose that's only fair.

[leifandthorn]

I've drawn these two in the Vampire (Hunter) Thorn AU. before, but I found myself in need of full-body outfit references. For reasons.

Violet "The Blade" Dupont (dressed like a Hellsing character), and Rowan "Dresses Like Blade" Muscade (...yeah).

[leifandthorn]

If you haven't seen it yet, i HIGHLY recommend you check out the latest entry under #foxfic of the tumblr foxofninetales.

The one with Jeeves and Wooster bringing the One Ring to Mount Doom?

A+ crossover, jolly well perfect, exactly how that would turn out

(the only thing it's missing is a "Ring for Jeeves" pun)

[leifandthorn]

This "Stained glass" faille jacket by Freda Blackwood came across my Tumblr dash, and I immediately knew it was the kind of fashion that Ceannis would be all over. So here's a wallpaper of Thorn wearing it (...and not much else).

Support Leif & Thorn on Patreon to get high-res versions.

[leifandthorn]

Started drawing different versions of Thorn for an art styles meme...then realized I didn't care about all the styles, I mostly just liked these four!

Top: default style, 1970s manga

Bottom: modern moe, 1990s manga

[leifandthorn]

Bonus: The extra unfinished styles are now on Patreon.

[leifandthorn]

New Patreon bonus: I made this post about playing with Waveform outputs back in 2023, on some soft-shaded character art. Mentioned that the results were very different with cel-shaded comics.

...And then I never posted the examples with cel-shaded comics. Until now!